Film Review | Rush

I'm sure that racing enthusiasts make for a great market to exploit: they're plentiful and passionate about cars and will readily jump at any film that portrays an aspect of their hobby on the silver screen.

(This probably counts double for more general automotive fanatics, especially here: the news that Fast and Furious 6 was the most successful film of the year among local audiences came as absolutely no surprise to this reviewer).

But can a film depicting a key historical moment in Formula 1 history - as Ron Howard's Rush does - capture and maintain the attention of those who, like me, bear no interest for the sport in question (even finding the loud, circuitous racing the epitome of good time badly spent)?

Well, in portraying the legendary rivalry between British racing champion James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) that kept the racing world on its toes across the 1970s, Howard certainly dives into the universal meat that would make this story tick.

As Hunt successfully seduces a nurse (Natalie Dormer) tending to a fresh and grisly racing wound, he also supplies us with an explanatory voiceover.

It's not the racing itself that women find attractive, says the blue-blooded playboy racer, even suggesting that they may find the rote repetition of it all "pathetic". No, it's the fact that racing puts him so "close to death" that makes him irresistible.

"The closer you are to death, the more alive you feel. It's a wonderful way to live. It's the only way to drive."

This succinct little scene - with Hemsworth and Dormer fumbling out of their clothes and into bed as Hemsworth's character expounds upon his blind trust in the philosophy of relentless adrenaline - nicely sets the entire drama in motion. But it's also a reminder of how Hollywood biopics, like true stories in general, tend to slide into formula far too easily.

We know that Hunt is the bratty superstar (hell, his racing posse even nickname him 'superstar' to emphasise the point) who will eventually be forced to realise that his lifestyle is neither sustainable nor, in the long run, entirely satisfying.

His epiphany, as the premise of the film portends, will come in the form of Niki Lauda, a hard-working, technically exacting, German, rising-star racer who appears to be an almost exact foil for Hunt's louche, effortless charm and daredevil attitude on the racetrack.

And that's fine. Who doesn't like a classically familiar story of polar opposites duking it out, only for their relationship to swerve into an area of mutual respect (even, perhaps, friendship) after a near-tragic accident nearly cripples one of them?

But there's a fundamental problem with the way this unspools within the film itself.

For reasons known only to him, Howard decides to push back this crucial turnaround to around 70 minutes into his two-hour film. And though some exposition on the characters' backgrounds, and their motivations, is appreciated, the film feels like a directionless trudge for most of its running time.

Luckily the performances go some way towards maintaining our attention as the plot dithers forward. Hemsworth, previously relegated to superhero-cum-beefcake roles, is surprisingly good here.

Though Hunt is by definition something of a stereotype, in the rare moments when his vulnerability shines through, Hemsworth makes sure you remember it.

By dint of the film's own storyline, Bruhl - a German superstar actor at this point, having appeared in everything from Goodbye, Lenin! to Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds - has a lot more to chew on and show off with, but he pulls off Lauda's spiky, strait-laced determination in a way that makes you root for him from the very beginning.

'The 1970s' and 'racing' aren't two terms you'd expect to herald gender balance. Perhaps this accounts for the somewhat lacking feminine presence in Howard's film.

Though Olivia Wilde does a good enough turn as Hunt's fashion model wife, Suzy Miller, TV mainstay Natalie Dormer (The Tudors, Game of Thrones) unfortunately falls away from the script soon, and abruptly.

All hope lies with Alexandra Maria Lara (Control, Downfall), who plays Lauda's long-suffering wife, Marlene. Sadly, the Romanian-German actress misses her chance, refusing to shift her expression from blank-eyed concern.

Though it'll probably be a main contender come Oscar season - ingredients: snapshot of real-life history, heartfelt performances, air-punchingly uplifting final resolution - the sad fact remains that, here's a film that doesn't properly rev up until its final third.

Still, I'm fairly sure that the racing enthusiasts are already lining up at the box office.